Aerophilic Debubbling

Abstract

In this letter, we characterize quantitatively the complex phenomenon of debubbling via aerophilic membranes by examining local interactions at the scale of single bubbles. We identify three asymptotic limits of evacuation dictated by Rayleigh, Ohnesorge and Darcy dynamics, the physics of which we capture using simple scaling laws. We show that beyond a threshold permeability, bubble evacuations become constant in time - a feature we understand as an inertio-capillary limit. Our experiments reveal that the fastest bubble evacuations require an interface that is nearly a liquid, but not quite.